In her final days as Britain's prime minister, Liz Truss was reportedly "obsessed" with Russia's threatened use of a nuclear weapon over the Black Sea — and if the fallout would hit the U.K.
The Daily Mail reported Truss feared a suspected hack of her phone by the Kremlin would give Russian President Vladimir Putin potential access to information about western support for Ukraine's President Volodymry Zelenkyy's regime.
When she was told Putin might explode a weapon in the air above the Black Sea to show the West what he was capable of without triggering a full-scale nuclear war, Truss worried the weather could blow the weapon toward Europe and the U.K., the news outlet reported.
"Liz was obsessed with the prevailing wind, watching the forecasts to see if she needed to trigger a Protect and Survive plan," one unnamed source told the news outlet.
The plan is a civil defense mechanism to advise the public on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack.
"Liz was terrified that news about her phone being hacked would come out because it looked almost symbolic of national weakness," the source told the news outlet.
"Then, as her government was collapsing, she had to worry about nuclear clouds as well. We found her watching the weather forecasts with unusual interest."
Nuclear cloud-mapping experts share information between countries about the direction of radiation, with radiation-detecting equipment dotted around the continent in the event of a nuclear weapon being used, the U.K.-based Mirror noted.
Putin has previously warned in a televised speech that he "will certainly use all the means at our disposal" if the West "endangered" Russian territory, insisting "this is not a bluff," the news outlet noted.
Truss, elected Conservative party leader on Sept. 5, lasted just 44 days in office, becoming the shortest serving Prime Minister in British history.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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